Art Of Officiating
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Covering conflict management, the psychology of officiating, best practices and officiating/life balance.
Understanding Player Intensity Helps Game Control
It’s all fun and games until someone (insert injury here). Such can be the case when players get too wound up for their own...
Eight Ways To Avoid Negative Attention
The pages of Referee often feature the do’s for landing the next big game and breaking into the next level. But equally important to...
Restart Readiness
At a time when scrutiny of officials is greater than ever before, the need to get plays right is Job One. Most evaluators won’t...
No Crime to Ask For Help – If You’re Smart About it
Every official has faced it: a close call, rising tension, and everyone on the sideline looking to see if you’ll turn to your partner...
Your Officiating Style Should Embrace Personal Growth
It's been one of those games. Every stop in play, someone from each team is complaining, and that doesn’t even include the coaches, who...
Kicking the Call
We’ve all kicked a call. If you say you haven’t, you’re a liar or delusional. When it happens, it’s one of those situations in which you’re all alone....
Don’t Lose Your Passion
Think about the last 10 officials with whom you’ve worked. How many of them brought passion to their game? What was your initial reaction...
More Than Words: Master the Art of Officiating Body Language
When people hear the word “communication,” they think of how one person speaks to another. A sometimes overlooked yet critically important method is body...
Study The Game To Improve As An Official
One of the greatest things you can do to help improve your officiating is to gain a better understanding of the game itself, whatever...
Correcting Bad Behavior With Well Timed Warnings
W
arnings come in a variety of forms. There’s “the look,” “the stop sign” and “the quiet word,” to name a few. Each can be...
Become Unflappable with Emotional Control
When people say, “There’s no need to get emotional,” that’s probably more true for officials than for the average person. Put a regular guy...
Always Time for Teachable Moments
Whether it is during the prematch conference or a postmatch debrief, a formal evaluation or a self-evaluation, or in a classroom clinic setting, we...
Are You Mentor Material?
Mentoring is a great way to give back to the avocation, but it’s not for everyone. So what does it take to be the...
Keep Communication Lines Open with Players
While officials have a fair amount of contact with coaches during a game, they are most often communicating with players. Here are some suggestions...
4 Habits of Successful Officials
If you took a poll of coaches and players and asked them to name the skills and habits that are important for a game...
5 Ways to Manage Conflict
When situations explode on the field or court, it's up to sports officials to restore the peace and manage conflict. In managing conflict, showing a little empathy, demonstrating good listening skills and providing people with options rather than...
Career Suicide Can Be a Killer
Officiating is unlike many endeavors in that hard work, diligent study and the right temperament are not guarantees to success.
Conversely, there are several...
7 Ways to Avoid Attacks
Unfortunately, in today’s culture, many officials have been followed out to their car by unfriendly people after a game. Others have been threatened during or after a...
Climb Your Mountain
A mountain is such a commonly used metaphor because it provides beautiful imagery to our goals and the challenges we face to reach them. Every...
Sometimes There Is No Right or Wrong Call
If you put 30 sports officials in a room, regardless of the sport, and watch a tight play on video, what happens during the...
Don’t Try To Win The Argument
As an official, when you are involved in a conflict, your goal is to resolve it. You have to fight the tendency to want to win the...
Arrive and Shine With Good First Impressions
How you enter the arena, stadium, field or other facility says a lot about you. Do you casually stroll in? Are you laughing, confident,...
48 Timeless Tips
The following "Timeless Tips" were originally targeted at first-year officials, but we believe all officials can benefit from these nuggets of wisdom. Enjoy.
You learn...
Honesty, Integrity Are Keys To a Full Schedule
The ability to grow your schedule is a key component to your development. We all want more games because we associate the number of...